We did not make it to Emancipation Jubilee in Seville, St. Ann. Instead, we stayed in Kingston and totally enjoyed a weekend filled with all the diversity that our city has to offer: Letters for Emancipendence written by Barbara Gloudon and performed by the Pantomime Company amused and amazed; the 14th annual Tribute to the Greats (in Jamaica’s extraordinary music industry) produced by Kingsley Goodison and his team, after which the wee hours had us dancing to the sounds of Merritone Disco;the 49th Season of the National Dance Theatre Company (N.D.T.C.);daytime was filled with tours of the Bob Marley Museum and the Hope Botanical Gardens, of the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies, of Downtown and New Kingston and of the National Heroes Park, where monuments and memorials were brought to life by memories of the carefully crafted recollections of our National Heroes in Letters for Emancipendence.

To tone things down a bit in the middle of this Emancipation weekend, we took a leisurely drive up into the St. Andrew hills to Newcastle, with a surprise pit stop at the home of artist Sheila Burke. Taking a break from her wet canvas she generously shared ‘herstories’ of the three generations of artists in her family. Hands, richly coloured with paint, gesticulated as she recounted the stories behind her own artwork and favourites in her decades old collection, including those by her friends, sculptor Alvin Marriott and poet laureate, Derek Walcott.

Further up in the misty Blue Mountains, we passed the bottling station for Catherine's Peak water (Cheers!) on our way up to the Jamaica Defence Force’s training ground in Newcastle. This, and the ever-beautiful private gardens of Greenwich Drive provided perfect photo ops. The juxtaposition of a gourmet meal in the rustic setting of EITS Café was the next pause that refreshed before meandering down to the city for the NDTC's performance. A stop at the Devon House Bakery and Ice Cream Shops provided a sweet nightcap at the end of a culturally rich day in Kingston.

Thanks to the Collins Family for their hunger to know Kingston. To take from a Jamaican phrase made popular by Bob Marley, we hope that "yu belly full, but yu hungry" for more!